Basically, though, ALA has four rooms available for groups to use – two 25-seat rooms, one 50-seat room, and one 100-seat room. Because these are virtual spaces, they’re available 24/7. Any ALA unit (divisions, round tables, sections, committees, etc.) or ALA-affiliated group can use a room to hold a meeting (following existing ALA bylaws for meetings), a discussion group, or as a presentation space for up to 100 participants. OPAL rooms provide:

Text chat (including the ability to save the transcript);

Voice chat for participants with microphones and speakers (including the ability to record the conversation);

The abilityÂ to display web pages or slides for presentations;

Co-browsing web pages;

The ability for participants to ask questions via text chat.

Use of the rooms is completely free for ALA units and affiliated groups to do training or other tasks related to ALA work. Even ALA staff can use it internally for virtual meetings with each other. Plus, the ability to record audio means you can also use it to record a podcast. And yes, this meeting space is also available during conferences.